SOUTH WELLFLEET — Let's say you need to identify a bird feather to save the world from a really crummy villain. There's only one thing to do. You grab the hotline and yell, "Get Keith Gagnon!"

Now, Keith is only 6 years old, so he might need a ride from his parents. But once he's on the job, chances are he'll ID the bird lickety-split. After all, he is a feather wunderkind.

"Sometimes you don't even need the bird book," Keith, who lives in Brewster, said. "You have me for the bird book."

Keith's natural curiosity has so impressed staff at the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary that they made him a guest curator and devoted a display case for his feather collection.

His trophies include feathers from an Eastern screech owl, a red-breasted merganser, a northern cardinal and the tail of a red-tailed hawk (his favorite).

"It's hard not to be enthusiastic about birds when you are around Keith," said sanctuary office manager Betsy Ryder. "You realize how wonderful it is — and as adults we sometimes forget that."

Keith's passion for plumage began with a Baltimore oriole feather he found last summer at day camp.

Soon after, he conscripted his parents into his feather-finding army, and they began marching over hill and dale in search of fluttering treasure.

"We go out for three-hour walks at a time looking for snowy owl," said Kimberly Gagnon, Keith's mom.

"I never would have in my wildest dreams imagined going out in the middle of winter, walking Nauset Beach for three hours."

Brewster tyke a feather wunderkind

CapeCast video

Keith's feather acumen has also led to some teachable moments, the kind where his parents do the learning.

"One day my dad found this turkey feather on the golf course, and he thought it was an osprey feather," said Keith. "He came home and I said, 'Thanks, dad, for the turkey feather.'"

"You never go against the expert," admitted his dad, also named Keith Gagnon, a bit sheepishly.

But the elder Gagnons have proven unflappable as they follow Keith, his bird guidebook and his flights of fancy toward new horizons.

For his birthday, Keith asked to go to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., said Kim Gagnon. "Who would think? Most kids are thinking Disney," she said. "This was just his dream. We had a great time."